


Circle Breathing

by Vanyel



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: also ha it's the other one, but sniper is smarter, demo has big lungs, more music stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 01:47:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6884002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanyel/pseuds/Vanyel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange things happen in the night in the outback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circle Breathing

The BLU team sat relaxing around the campfire, idly watching the smoke swirl into the night. Scout sighed, leaning back against the log. “Man, I know this whole camping trip is cuz we’re tryin’ to find that otha guy for the team, an’ he’s the kinda weirdo that lives out in the middle of the nowhere, like, even more nowhere than tha base, but right now I’m bored outta my friggin’ mind!” He glanced over at Demo, raising an eyebrow as the bomber fiddled with something in his hands. “Hey, Cyclops, whatcha got there? Anything interesting?”

Demo smiled back at him, showing Scout the odd cylindrical piece of wood he’d been toying with the last several minutes. “‘S a didgeridoo, lad,” he explained. “Bought it a few years back, an’ out here’s as good a place as any to learn how to play it. At least out here, if the noise does call down some form of bloodeh monster, we’ll be able to see it coming. Nothin’ can sneak up on us out here.” He held it out smirking. “You want to try?”

Scout scoffed. “Didger-what? Ain’t that from the place with all the people who fight kangaroos n’ shit?” He moved over to Demo and grabbed the instrument, turning it over in his hands. “It’s just a piece of wood, howdya play it?”

“Put that end up to your mouth,” Demo pointed, flipping it correctly in the boy’s hands, “and blow. Lungs like yours outta keep it going pretty long.”

Raising the didgeridoo to his lips, Scout took a deep breath, and blew. It was a few moments before any sound managed to eke out, and it was more a squawk than any sort of note. He took it away, a little blue in the face and panting. “Man, I was blowin’ as hard as I could,” Scout complained, nearly throwing the wood onto the ground, “an’ it wasn’t working. You sure it ain’t broken?”

Demo chuckled, snatching it back and raising it to his own mouth. “Nae, lad, you’re just doing it wrong.” He blew, and a low buzzing sound came out, lasting for several seconds before the bomber had to pull back, panting. “See? Ye just got ta know how ta blow.” He waggled his eyebrows, chuckling weakly.

Scout rolled his eyes, but grinned, trying to grab it back to try again. “Lemme try again!”

One by one, the rest of the team retreated to either Engie’s truck or Medic’s catering van, the only vehicles they had for travel, in pairs or solo to get some sleep before the next day on the road. Eventually Demo and Scout were left alone sitting next to each other by the fire, messing around with the didgeridoo and laughing to themselves and the strange sounds.

“Make that one sound again! That one was funny!” Scout pleaded with Demo, who rolled his eyes but raised the didjeridoo again, forcing another harsh buzzing out of it with a quick, bad breath. They chuckled loudly, echoing into the empty night.

“‘S that a didgeridoo?”

The mercs jumped at the sudden deep voice behind them, Scout grabbing his bat off the ground and turning away from the fire. “Wh-who the hell?” Demo held up the instrument like a weapon. “Show yourself, you bloody-”

A tall, slim figure dressed in a light brown shirt and brown vest stepped into the glow of the fire, gloved hands raised defensively. “Don’t mean any of you no harm, mate,” he said quietly, looking out from behind glasses that gleamed with the light of the fire. “Just was camping nearby waitin’ for someone, heard the attempts at playing that familiar lil’ instrument, got curious.” The man smiled softly, one hand coming down and extending forward. “Mind if I try?”

The two eyed him for a moment, then looked at one another and shrugged. Demo handed the didjeridoo to him, grinning. “Knock yourself out, boyo. The breathing on this thing is nigh impossible to keep going.” The stranger took the didgeridoo, tilting his hat back to get a better look and checking it over in his hands for a minute, smiling softly. Then, he began to play.

It was the strangest, most haunting sound anyone had ever heard, like a low buzzing with a odd, almost imperceptibly moving pitch. The sound reverberated into the night, filling the world around them with its vibration. Some of the rest of the team began coming back out of their resting places for the night to listen to the stranger play.

After about a minute, Scout realized he never heard or saw the stranger take his mouth off the didgeridoo, not even for a quick breath. It was as if he didn’t have to take any breaths at all, just one continuous stream of glorious, soul-shaking sound. The music went on for a good five minutes, unbroken, before the stranger finally lifted his mouth from the end of the didgeridoo with a broad grin on his face, not even winded.

Scout finally picked his jaw off the floor, mustering up the brainpower to ask, “How the hell did ya learn how ta do that, pally?”

The man just chuckled softly, handing the didgeridoo back to a wide-eyed Demo. With an infuriating smirk, he replied, “I’m Australian, mate.” He turned around and walked away with a wave, disappearing into the night before anybody could realize or stop him.

* * *

“An’ I swear,” Scout said, yapping to the blood-covered body of his RED counterpart pinned beneath the shrapnel of an exploded sentry, “nobody’s seen nor heard a’ that guy since. There weren’t even tracks in da mornin’ ta show where he’d wandered off to! Like some sorta Australian musical ghost or somethin’.”

The other Scout scoffed, coughing up a wad of blood in the process. “Man, that story is a load of shit an’ we both know it.”

He frowned, whacking the trapped boy in the head lightly. “I’m tellin’ ya, it’s true! Demo kept the damn thing, he’s still tryna figure out how the guy did that endless sound-without-taking-breaths thing.”

“‘S called circle breathing, mate.”

Scout jolted and looked up at the sound of the familiar voice, just in time to see the little red laser dot whoosh across the ground and onto his face. He barely caught a glimpse of that instantly recognizable, infuriating smirk under the aviators before he woke up in the Respawn room.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a story told to me by my Music of the World's People professor about the Ghost Didgeridoo Player on campus. I had too much fun.


End file.
